Dean's Princess

Chapter 2

It only takes me about 2 days of nonstop driving to reach the Black Water Ridge place Rachel was talking about on the phone.
Only problem is; there's nothing there, it's just woods and canyons. Nothing remotely special. What was she doing out there?
I drive for a few minutes longer before pulling into the nearest town: Lost creek. I find a decent motel that doesn't make me want to vomit or make me feel like something is going to crawl up my legs as I sleep.
I get a shower and change out of my nasty two day olds clothes. I put on an old Ac-dc concert shirt and some red shorts and some white converses.
I keep my face free of makeup and grab my keys before heading out. If there's one thing I know about small towns, it's that the bars of full of drunk people who will literally talk about anything. Perfect place to get information.
It doesn't take me long to find a dive bar and walk inside, the place is packed full of people who chatter loudly, while equally loud music plays in the background.
I walk up to the bar and the old woman with just a little to much makeup on smiles at me. "What's your poison, doll?" I order a beer and relax at my spot on the bar.
While waiting for my drink I notice two guys with their backs turned to me, in deep conversation. One has great hair and the other has a leather jacket on. They seem to be talking about something important.
I pay for my beer, and walk around chatting people up. They welcome me like I've been here forever. I talk and laugh, trying to make myself seem like I belong here. People have always opened up to me pretty easily. I learn from a particularly sweet guy that a local guy has gone missing. His name is Tommy, and he has a younger brother and sister, Ben and Haley. They've been freaking out because Tommy hasn't checked up on them in a couple of days.
After spending about half an hour gathering info on Tommy, I walk back over to the two guys I saw from earlier. I choose the table directly behind them, so I can hear their conversation without looking like a creeper. They could be talking about nothing, but my gut tells me that it's something important. "So, Black Water Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic-local campers mostly-but still this past April, two hikers went missing out there. They were never found." The guy with great hair says, piquing my curiosity.
"Any before that?" Leather jacket asks. "Yeah. In 1982 eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack. And again in 1959, and again before that in 1936. Every 23 years, just like clockwork."
I sip my beer and lift my phone just an inch above my shoulder, but enough to where I can see the stuff on their table. I snap a few pictures quietly and bring my phone back down.
"Ok watch this, here's the clincher. I downloaded that guy Tommy's video onto the laptop. Watch this." Once again I look over my shoulder to see the laptop, but the great hair guy is blocking it. I hear three clicks on the keyboard.
"Do it again." Leather jacket says and I hear three more clicks. "That's three frames, that's a fraction of a second. Whatever that thing is, it can move." Great hair guys says. Holy shit, that's fast.
I hear a light thud and a small grunt, leather jacket says. "I told you something weird was going on." Did he? "Yeah I got one more thing. In '59, one camper survived that supposed grizzly attack." Great hair says.
I sit up a little bit straighter in my seat, wanting to hear the name. I've gotta hear the name. "Just a kid-barely crawled out of the woods alive." That's not what I want to hear, great hair.
"Is there a name?" Leather jacket asks the question I'm thinking. Bingo.
******************
The two men leave the bar and I tail them to an old house that seems to be falling apart at the seams. I park at the end of the street and watch them enter the house, before getting out of my baby, running to the house, and creeping along the side and up to a window, which is a good five inches above my head.
I stand on my tip toes as I struggle to hear the conversation going on inside. "Mr. Shaw...what did you see?"
I hear a heavy sigh that ends shakily, almost as if he's afraid to answer. "Nothing. It moved to fast to see. It hid too well. I heard it though. A roar...like no man or animal I ever heard."
"It came at night, got inside your tent." Great hair guys phrases it kind of like a question. "It got inside our cabin." Shaw corrects. "I was sleeping in front of the fireplace, when it got inside. It didn't smash a window or break the door--it unlocked it." Holy shit.
"Do you know of a bear that could do something like that?" I shake my head even though he can't see me. What the fuck did Rachel find? "I didn't even wake up until I heard my parents screaming." I flinch and peek over the bottom of the window.
"It killed them?" Great hair guy says from his sitting position in front of Shaw. "Dragged them off into the night. Why it left me alive-I've been asking myself that ever since." They all look down in confusion and sadness.
Shaw looks up and moves the top left corner of his robe away from his shoulder. "Did leave me this though." I suppress a gasp at the sight of the humungous scar raking down his chest, four long claw marks that certainly don't belong to a damn bear. By the look on the other guys faces, they're just as surprised as I am.
"There's something evil in those woods. It was some sort of demon." I run back to my car and drive back to my hotel, needing to process this new information.
I sit on the creaky motel bed with my laptop and my dad's old notebook. He wrote down everything he ever hunted or anything any friends of his ever hunted. Not a demon, demons can just walk through walls, there's no need for them to unlock doors. I also take out my phone and study the pictures of the newspaper. Obviously they're hunters but I get the feeling they didn't originally come here because of the missing people.
I comb over this new information until my brain starts pounding and my body simply cant stay awake anymore. I close the laptop and book, placing them on the little round table in the makeshift kitchen. I fall back onto the bed, not even bothering to change my clothes. I need to get a close look at those woods. Well, I know where I'm going tomorrow and it sure as hell ain't bingo.